Terahertz laser pulses amplify optical phonons in solids
Thursday, November 15, 2018 - 10:00
in Physics & Chemistry
A study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg/Germany presents evidence of the amplification of optical phonons in a solid by intense terahertz laser pulses. These light bursts excite atomic vibrations to very large amplitudes, where their response to the driving electric field becomes nonlinear and conventional description fails to predict their behavior.